Mayor Fenty Announces Major Restructuring of Department on Disability Services

Today, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty announced the nomination of Judith E. Heumann as the Director of the Department on Disability Services. The Mayor also announced a major restructuring of this department under Ms. Heumann’s leadership.

On March 14, 2007, Mayor Fenty moved the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration, formerly within the Department of Human Services, into the new cabinet-level Department on Disability Services (DDS). The Fenty Administration has committed to aggressively address areas that have been deemed critical to ensuring the health, safety and welfare of DDS consumers, while availing them of the least restrictive and most integrated settings and conditions for habilitation and care.

The Fenty Administration’s DDS reform plan focuses on four areas: Leadership and organization; health; safety; and welfare. The reform plan identifies 64 tasks intended to lead to improved long-term outcomes such as more consumers living in least restrictive settings, having improved health care, having the freedom of more and better choices for services and supports, and the ability to live independent and productive lives with the opportunity for supported employment. In addition to the reform plan, a separate work plan to organize the new agency to provide the management necessary to implement and sustain these initiatives has been created.

New Leadership at DDS
Fenty has nominated Judith E. Heumann to serve as the director of the Department on Disability Services. In June 2002, she was named as the World Bank's first adviser on disability and development. In this position, Heumann, an internationally recognized expert on disability and diversity issues, led the World Bank's work to expand the Bank’s knowledge and capability to work with governments and civil society on including disability initiatives. Her work highlighted the importance of integrating disability priorities in Bank dis